Americanglossy

December 10, 1998|BY LYNN ROBERSON Special to the Sun-Sentinel

A picnic table covered with traditional red checks boasts gleaming plastic cartons of pasta salad, cookies and chips. White-frosted cupcakes with red and blue sprinkles are set on a pyramid of glass, and topped by a tiny American flag. Behind the bountiful table, young boys in combat green skirmish with authentic-looking rifles. Smoke drifts from barbecue grills smoldering just off canvas. Reflected, refracted light plays at the table.

Up in Smoke, Janet Fish's 11-foot oil from 1997, is as savvy about American pop culture as a Publix commercial. In one vividly colored frame, Fish evokes the Minute Men, Bunker Hill, pickup trucks, playground violence, deli cuisine, Cheech and Chong. Is the painting a satiric riff about an army running on its belly? Are Ruffles potato chips good fuel?

Seventeen luminous oil paintings comprise "Janet Fish: Selected Works 1970s-1990s," on view through Jan. 17 at the Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale. The artist, who celebrates her 60th birthday this year, is one of America's most noted representational painters, and on the surface, her art seems all vibrant color, dappled light, bouquets of flowers, luscious fruits. But lurking within her reverence for natural form are humor and irony, revealing an acute, quirky sensibility.

Apples, from 1970, documents Fish's abstract expressionist beginnings and her preoccupation with light. Four ruby-red apples bulge like a sculpture by Arp under a glossy sheath of plastic wrap. The wavering, repetitive pattern created by light reflecting off plastic is Fish's focus. The apples become secondary to that reality, though a comment on food packaging and apple waxing survives.

A nod to Depression artist Edward Hopper makes Green Bowl and Two Roses more than a flower picture. Set on a window ledge, glassware, bowl and roses overlook a desolate cityscape. Something's going on in the building across the street -- we can see a man through the window, but his head is chopped off by a half-pulled shade. The glittering bowl and water tumblers become an enigmatic counterpoint to the scene.

The notion of upset -- spilled drawers, smashed glass, flowers turned topsy-turvy, the breaking of light by a prism -- is a theme that recurs. Fallen Vase (1987) captures the instant of an accident, again at an open window -- another popular motif. A storm blows up from the misty green mountains; the resultant billowing of a diaphanous pink curtain topples a lamp, a bowl of fruit, a vase of zinnias and marigolds.

In contrast to Vase's magentas, purples, bright yellows and oranges, reverberating with the moment of impact, 1989's Tulips and Gray Cat is all pale yellows, pinks, icy blue and gray, with the disaster yet to come. A mischievous feline pounces into an open drawer; in another instant, the cat will jump to a tempting sheaf of cut flowers and knock them to the floor.

Most subtle, and most disturbing, of the upset paintings is Geese in Flight (1996). A glistening vase, with an open pink mouth reminiscent of the carnivorous Audrey II in Little Shop of Horrors, holds sprays of apple blossom. The surreal landscape is defined by the boundaries of a red-and-blue patterned tablecloth. Strangely ovoid geese flap overhead. A cracked robin's egg rolls in the foreground.

Fish began painting human figures in the 1980s. Sarah Swimming (1986) and Feeding Caitlin (1988) suggest Mary Cassatt's maternal tableaux. Tender, pastoral, Sarah is embellished with Fish's botanically correct flowers, including a few water lily pads in a nod to Monet. A red-hatted mother solicitously dabs her baby's mouth in Caitlin.

Wearing the same turquoise dress, the mother turns up looking as tired as her old gown in 1995's Lorna and Bob. Bob has just enjoyed a fine shrimp dinner, chased with a foamy beer, and radiates contentment. Lorna, who has arranged the pale tulips, set the beautiful table and boiled the shrimp, seems to think of dishes to wash and Bob snoring in bed.